Human Dignity and Bioethics

392 | David Gelernter
Since you are a reasonable person, your only rational conclusion
is that each person has a right to obey his own inner promptings—
insofar as they don’t collide with anyone else’s. But when they do
collide with someone else’s, you have no basis for asserting that your
inner promptings are right and the other person’s are wrong (leaving
the law aside, which is irrelevant for our purposes). In other words:
when a collision exists, you no longer have any rational basis for
obeying your own inner promptings. It’s reasonable for you to refrain
personally from committing murder. It is unreasonable for you to
compel others to do the same.
But let’s leave reason aside and return to reality. In fact you would
compel that would-be murderer to stop, if you could. (And you’d
do so even if you found yourself in a lawless totalitarian state where
there was—in effect—no law against murder.) But what gives you the
right to compel that would-be murderer to stop? To compel another
person to obey your inner promptings instead of his own? What gives
you the authority to carry out this act of compulsion? Not reason.
The answer must lie elsewhere, in some authority beyond reason.
We know two things about this authority. First, it must hold
sway over (or set bounds to the behavior of) every human being
on earth—because your wish to halt that murder had nothing to
do with the murderer’s identity. Second, the authority must outlaw
murder and any other crimes or sins concerning which you believe
yourself empowered to act.
In short: unless you are proclaiming yourself supreme ruler of
mankind, you must believe in God. And not just any God. Most
modern, ethically-minded people will find their “inner promptings”
more or less in agreement with the Ten Commandments and the
Holiness Code of Leviticus 19:
Thou shalt leave [the gleanings of your fields] for the poor
and the stranger….Ye shall not steal, neither shall ye deal
falsely, nor lie to one another…. The wages of a hired servant
shall not abide with thee all night until the morning. Thou
shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling block before
the blind…. In righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among
thy people; neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy